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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26292175">Heroes Never Die</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Readerfred/pseuds/WriterFred'>WriterFred (Readerfred)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>James Bond - All Media Types, Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Could be a relationship, Depictions of Assisted Suicide, Gen, Mentions of Cancer, Spy Nonsense, You could ship the two named ocs if you want, depictions of suicide, mention of dead bodies, sad fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:16:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,367</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26292175</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Readerfred/pseuds/WriterFred</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ah, Agent. How nice to see you. You so rarely visit." As the words ring out into the air of the metal room, a woman stalks into the room from the only door attached to it. </p><p>A responding chuckle rings out from a man lying spread eagle on a metal exam table, with iron manacles keeping him in his prior position. He is a middle aged man, 25-35 in age from his clean-shaven face and rich head of wavy brown hair. The man is chained to a table, with a red dot that is slowly, almost unnoticeable growing brighter trained right on his chest. "I feel I must apologize for that, especially if this is how you treat old friends that fall from contact every now and again, my dear." The so named Agent responds, humor heavy in his voice.</p><p>"'Old friends' is a rather generous term. I prefer the term antagonists, myself, for our relationship. Still, a defenseless maiden like myself can never be too careful, not in the world of today, what with the amount of super-beings that crop up like flies." The 'defenseless maiden' returned, a harsh, meaner edge to her words than in Agent's. However, there is still humor present in her words.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Female Character &amp; Original Male Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Heroes Never Die</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Warnings of: Suicide and Assisted Suicide.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Ah, Agent. How nice to see you. You so rarely visit." As the words ring out into the air of the metal room, a woman stalks into the room from the only door attached to it. </p><p>A responding chuckle rings out from a man lying spread eagle on a metal exam table, with iron manacles keeping him in his prior position. He is a middle aged man, 25-35 in age from his clean-shaven face and rich head of wavy brown hair. The man is chained to a table, with a red dot that is slowly, almost unnoticeable growing brighter trained right on his chest. "I feel I must apologize for that, especially if this is how you treat old friends that fall from contact every now and again, my dear." The so named Agent responds, humor heavy in his voice.</p><p>"'Old friends' is a rather generous term. I prefer the term antagonists, myself, for our relationship. Still, a defenseless maiden like myself can never be too careful, not in the world of today, what with the amount of super-beings that crop up like flies." The 'defenseless maiden' returned, a harsh, meaner edge to her words than in Agent's. However, there is still humor present in her words.</p><p>"Madame, you wound me. And you, defenseless? HA! If you are defenseless, the president should have been assassinated yesterday. You are anything but. However, that outcropping of villains in the world had taken up a good amount of my time. After all, what villain wouldn't want to be thwarted by the best of the best, Agent 010?" Agent responded, laughter present beneath every word, his body raising slightly off of the slab, filled with pride.</p><p>"Any competent villain, for one." Madame's deadpanned words seem to puncture Agent's pride, his body slumping back down onto the table. "Besides, I think more would prefer the prestige that comes with tangling with 007, isn't he the poster-boy of your Agency?" At those words, Agent seems to complete his deflation, completely limp against his metal bonds, overreacting to her words. </p><p>"Truly, sticks and stones might break my bones but thy words shall break my spirit." Agent says, sighing despondently. "Why, one might think you dislike my company, as clearly insane as that idea sounds! So, Madame, care to enlighten me about your latest activity?"</p><p>"Well, I do love a good chance to gloat, especially as you are trapped here quite neatly... Might as well." She said, after a short pause to consider Agent's question. "You see, I want a home. A place that I can truly call my own, not like these island bases that I inhabit unlawfully." Madame explained, waving her hands around at the room. "Nor like a house one buys in a country, which is still a part of that country, and subject to it’s taxes. No, I want a piece of land that I have true control over, that is owned by none but me, no matter what I do on it. One that is subject to no set of laws I don't implement! Essentially, I want my own country, but not so big it would actually require ruling. After all, running an evil organization is hard enough, I can't imagine the amount of work it would take to rule a true country. However, enough land for a nice mansion with a proper yard that would be solely under my influence is all that I asked of Greece. Sure, I asked for it for free, but I figured that since I was already threatening them for what I wanted, why not make it cheaper?" Madame shrugged, a mean smirk on her face. "As to how I'm threatening the Greeks, well I figured it'd be properly ironic if I threatened them with about fifty Greek Firebombs, to strike important locations across the country. Unquenchable flames, burning across the countryside, in the capitol, in their major cities. I don’t imagine they could afford it, do you?” Madame’s smile widens, all teeth and sharp edges and cruelty. Agent feels some small shivers down his spine.</p><p>“Not anymore than they could afford that patch of land on their border with Albania. It is one of their most vital defensive positions, and they can’t afford new forts, what with their whole economy heading down the drain, you understand.” Agent tries to gesture, but the chains clatter, impeding his movements. He looks at the one on his right hand. “Blasted things.” </p><p>“Anyhow, regardless of how fun it is to talk about my plots with someone who actually understands them, I must go and order around my minions. You know how they get, running around like headless chickens without a proper villain to lead them around, tell them to vaporize invaders, mutilate defectors, and torture infiltrators. Any last words? I’ll even record them!” Madame holds out a small, grey tape recorder. “I know it’s terribly old fashioned, positively ancient, but I figured I’d grant an old man like you the comfort of familiarity at the end, no need to stress you out with something new and frightening.” She pauses, waiting for Agent to respond. “What, no cutting response, no quick quip to show your sharp wit?”</p><p>He sighs, responding “Madame, you make it sound like that is all our relationships are composed of!”</p><p>The woman, Madame, snorts. “Because that is all our ‘relationship’ is composed of, beyond mutual attempts at sabotage and one-sided murder attempts.”</p><p>“Ah, but you forget all the flirting! Were my honeyed words so inconsequential to your lovely appetite? I am hurt in my heart Madame.” He grins, his face betraying the words as he was speaking them.</p><p>“Sure you are.” Madame rolls her eyes at the man, Agent. “I’ll be going, have fun!” She waves her hand as she leaves with a graceful stalk and a swing in her hips.<br/>A small, sad little smile graces Agent’s face as he turns his head to look at the laser, having grown brighter as the two talked. “I already have, Lisa.” He says, low, quiet, and full of emotion. “I already have.”</p><p>The last sound heard in the chamber is the sound of the fully charged laser burning a hole in his chest.</p><hr/><p>“Madame, the Agent is dead. He was killed by the laser.” Says an average man, wearing a black suit, dress shirt and tie, sitting in-front of a monitor that shows the prior room, with the dead Agent sitting on the same table, a cauterized hole where his heart should have been.</p><p>Madame pauses momentarily, just a simple hitch in her stride as she paces across the center of the control room, before she resumes her pacing, which accelerates. “Of course he was, that was the whole point of the lasers. Which one of them was it, the one set in the doorway, the ones in the passageway, or the ones in the ventilation shaft?”</p><p>The man who had spoken hesitated, before responding. “None of those were the laser that felled the Agent. It was the slowly charging death trap that killed him, Madame.”</p><p>This time the pause in her pacing is noticeable as she comes to a complete stop, turning to face the minion reporting on Agent’s state of being. “I must have misheard you, because I thought I heard you say that Agent 010, who has destroyed every single base he entered, who has shattered every plan I have made into tiny useless pieces, who is hated by death itself so much it refuses to take him, that Agent 010, fell to the warm-up laser.” She smiles, all teeth and sharp edges, her dark tone promising a pitiful death to those who would dare to anger her. “Run that by me again, minion.”</p><p>The aforementioned minion gulped, deeply regretting choosing to go into villainy as a henchman, he should have saved up money and gone in as an informant/drug-dealer. They don’t have bosses that threaten dismemberment with just a tone at the hint of bad news. “A-agent fell to the laser you trained at his chest and warned him about, in the first room. He never moved after you left the room.”<br/>Madame returned to her pacing, she knew this trick. “Send in two of the guards outside the room, have them enter watching each other’s blind-spot. Agent has likely hacked the camera and set up a false video. Truly, he is such a tease. He’s likely hiding in the room, ready to take out any goons sent to throw out his ‘corpse’.”</p><p>“Of course Madame!” The minion snapped to action, knowing any false movements could result in him gaining a new lead piercing. “Men, have the two of you closest to the room holding the Agent to enter watching each other’s backs. If you see movement, shoot first and question after.” The commands are stated into a microphone that connects to the guard radios.</p><p>Almost immediately after the last word comes across the radio, a slight crackle the only change, the image of the room on the minion’s monitor changes, as two large and stockily built men enter the room. They are in black bulletproof vests, with thick padding covering their bodies, making the already large men seem like mountains of muscle and force. They held pistols, as any larger gun is harder to use in the tight corridors of Madame’s fortresses.</p><p>“How advanced! Agent’s inventor has simply outdone himself this time, to make a footage editor that adapts to add any changes in the base, but keeps the section where the Agent is in a false state, showing a corpse that isn’t there!” As one of Madame’s technicians was going to continue with his praise, he is cut off by the report from the guards, as one of them appears to prod the corpse with his finger.</p><p>“He’s dead, Madame. His corpse is right here. I can feel the body heat slowly fading from it.” Everyone in the room pauses, and turns to look at Madame once they realize what the grunt had said. “Is that what you wanted us to check out?” </p><p>“I see.” Madame pauses, seeming to be in deep thought. After a few minutes in this state of thought, Madame is startled out of her thoughts and looks at the minions in the room. “What are you all waiting for? We made demands, those demands were answered with Agent, and now Agent is dead. It is there something else that you need, because it is now time to go through with our threats. Such a shame, Greece really didn’t need to burn to ashes, but that’s what happens when you ignore my reasonable demands. Release the bombs.” </p><p>A minion immediately moves to pull up the folder that controls the firebombs. “Um… Madame, we have a… slight, problem with the program.”</p><p>Madame growls. “Explain.” </p><p>“The program folder is empty. All that is left is a run program titled ‘Win the War, Lisa’. Should I play it?” The minion asks timidly.</p><p>“Yes.” Madame grounds out, clenching her teeth.</p><p>The minion eeps, then activates the program. A video pops up on all of the screens.</p><p>“Hello again Lisa, I’m back!” The video shows a fire-lit room, with a large velvet armchair, in which Agent 010 sits with a glass of golden-brown brandy, the firelight making it flicker and seem to move. “I know, you thought yourself rid of me finally, but I’ve got one last speech to give before I give up the goat, as they say! I wanted to finally formally introduce myself, not give you that ridiculous call sign that the bosses will hand off to some rookie in a few weeks. My name is Brian Edgewood, and I am, or rather I was, Agent 010. I wanted to leave this program to do two things, and I’ll explain the second in a few minutes.” The image pauses and takes a drink. “I know that I have died due to your machinations, either a trap or one of your many minions. I know this because I am not planning on surviving this mission. No matter how the mission goes, I will die today, at your hands. Now, you might be asking why I’m trying to die by your hands, given the vast number of times I’ve spent trying to do the exact opposite. Simple, I’m dying anyways and I refuse to die to cancer. I have stage four cancer, with no chance for survival, no chance of remission. So, instead of artificially extending my life through painful treatments, I figured I’d die at the hands of someone who I actually respect, you. Thank you for preventing my suffering, and for all the exciting adventures.” The image pauses, smiles a sad little smile, and visibly pulls himself together. “Now, onto the second reason for this program. It has just activated the self-destruct on the Greek Firebombs, and you now have 10 minutes to escape before they all go off and turn this little island into a wonderful funeral pyre for little old me. Good luck, it’s been fun!” The video ends, with Brian waving at the camera with a cheeky smile.</p><hr/><p>In her private chambers, at her secondary base, Lisa Burbank fished out a bottle of brandy from a small bar along the wall, the bottle’s seal unbroken. The bottle is a type of liquor she would normally never drink in a thousand years. Her personal preference was a fine, aged wine, sweet and rich. Many such wines peppered the chamber, standing proud in their wine racks, but this bottle of brandy was special. It was a bottle she was sent by Agent 010 Brian, with a note reading, “Drink this in toast, to my life, when you finally win our war, instead of one of our battles! -Agent” </p><p>When Lisa had first received it, she thought it cute, and waited in glee for the moment she could finally pour out the booze in triumph. She had even gotten an identical bottle, just to try it ahead of time, and found it rich and strong. However, when she finally drank her glass, after raising it in toast to the one man she respected, she found it bitter.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading! I had a subtitle for this piece: But People Do. I didn't add it here because a) I didn't want to spoil it more than the tags and the warnings already do, and b) AO3 doesn't really have a good place for subtitles.<br/>I would appreciate comments on what was done well and what was done poorly, places to improve or change.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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